News Corp is facing three at least phone-hacking lawsuits in the US, according to reports.
The cases are being pursued by British lawyer Mark Lewis, who has represented dozens of celebrities in civil actions in the UK as well as the parents of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
The cases are expected to be filed within the next few weeks. ‘This is getting wider,’Lewis told US website the Daily Beast.
While Lewis declined to give specifics on the three US-based cases, the alleged victims have been widely identified in reports as Princess Diana’s former butler Paul Burrell, the former England football captain David Beckham and an associate of the Hollywood actor Jude Law.
Lewis said that in each of the new cases people in contact with the alleged victim may also have been targeted. ‘It’s not just the people who were A-list or celebrities, but people who were in their circles–people who might call them or work with them, what I would call the ordinary people who just got caught in the crossfire,’he said.
Lewis said the allegedly hacked telephone numbers were found in the notebooks of convicted private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and at least one was an American number, suggesting the phone of a US citizen was illegally accessed.
Lewis also suggested there could be more US-based cases in the pipeline, and said another of his US legal targets was News Corporation itself over ‘the dirty tricks that might have been used in order to further the commercial aims for News Corporation”.
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